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Reviews by Harold Bloomfield (HB56@aol.com)

Daredevil Yellow #6

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale finish their 6 part look at Daredevil's earliest years in the same nostalgic and melancholy vein they began.  No big finish.  No dramatic revelations or confrontations.  This last issue focuses on Karen's crush on Daredevil and how it changes her relationship with Matt and Foggy.  

The court assigns Nelson and Murdock to defend the imprisioned Purple Man.  Matt and Karen visit him in jail and of course he escapes and takes Karen along with him.  Something about his "aura" allows him to control anyone who can see him.  Of course being blind, Matt/Daredevil is unaffected.  DD eventually rescues Karen and learns she thinks his costume should be red because red is more appropriate for a devil and it's her favorite color.  They make a date to meet on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.  Back at work Karen shows a new attitute towards Foggy and Matt, treating them as her equal and reflecting new found confidence.

Back to the present Daredevil ruminates on how he came to terms with his father's memory by buying Fogwell's Gym and refurbishing it and how the guilt he feels over Karen's death is mitigated by the memories of their time together.  Loeb wants us to believe that by reliving the past Matt realized that the day Karen walked into the offices of Nelson and Murdock was not just the beginning of events that would lead to her death but also the start of many worthwhile things that even her death cannot overshadow.

Loeb and Sale portray the past as an innocent and less complicated time.  And perhaps this is the way Matt is supposed to be remembering it.  However, it's hard to reconcile what we know becomes of Karen with the pure portrait of her here.  It's not just that she meets such a violent end, it's the fact that she became a drug addicted exploited porn actress who sold Matt out for a fix. This should lend even more melancholy if Matt's recollections of their earliest times is of her as such an innocent.  That Matt recalls their beginnings in such detail without any sadness or thoughts of that part of their history strains credibility.

Actually I think what Loeb and Sale were looking back on is not necessarily the way Matt and Karen used to be but the way comic books used to be. This is clearly the Stan Lee/Wally Wood Daredevil and about as far away from Miller's "Man Without Fear" as you can get. Even without the grit and realism that the best of the later Daredevil pioneered this is an enjoyable miniseries.  The artwork is top notch throughout and Loeb, while keeping things simple, provided some fine characterizations of the early Matt, Foggy and Karen. I only wish he would have been slightly more ambitious and found a way to mix a little bit of the latter day edge into the mix.  


Daredevil (and other related characters appearing) and the distinctive likenesses are Trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc. and are used WITHOUT permission.
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